


Homemaker

by themantlingdark



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-13 21:21:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16900032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themantlingdark/pseuds/themantlingdark
Summary: for this fluffy human au prompt from thorvaenn :Wow that sure is a nice, spacious house that Loki has there.. And he’s like really willing to let his slightly less successful brother Thor come visit… Or stay forever… Drinking very cold milkshakes..





	Homemaker

When Loki’s two o’clock rhinoplasty consultation walked into his office he blinked twice and wondered if he was dreaming.

“Have you been having trouble breathing?” Loki asked.

“No. Why?”

“You mentioned the issue was with your nose.”

“Yes,” the man nodded, rubbing a small bump high on the right side of the bridge.

“It’s just… you’re the spitting image of Paul Newman,” Loki said.

“Who?”

Loki took a deep, silent breath and summoned every ounce of his willpower to resist exhaling with an audible sigh.

  


An ambulance screamed past while Loki was explaining the process by which he would provide the desired nose. It was the same dull, straight Ken Doll nose everyone asked for. Loki answered the ensuing questions on autopilot and ushered the man out to the front desk for scheduling.

 

 _Was that you?_ Loki typed, walking slowly back to his office while watching the screen, nearly colliding with the door.

_No, I’m on the west side._

_Still free for dinner tonight?_

_So far, so good._

 

Loki willed his neighbors to have a healthy evening.

  
  


At seven Loki saw an unfamiliar car pull into his driveway. His brother stepped out of the driver’s seat.

“Where’s Penny?” Loki asked, hugging Thor hello in the foyer. Thor normally drove an old sedan with copper paint that he’d bought from their aunt eight years ago.

“Transmission went. We can pour one out for her later,” Thor said, with a feigned grimace that melted into a true grin. “This one has enough head room that I can put my hair up in a bun without it hitting the ceiling.”

Loki gave his brother a yes-I-can-see-that nod. Thor’s voluminous, sloppy top knot was pushing his height in the vicinity of seven feet.

  


Summer was ceding ground in ways that could be seen more than felt. The air was a humid eighty-two, but the brightest part of the day was visibly dimmer than it had been in June, and the leaves looked scuffed and spent. The younger sugar maples were beginning to turn and the crickets outnumbered the cicadas. The tops of supermarket shelves were covered in colorful cloth scarecrows and stacks of plastic pumpkins that would soon swoop into the spaces currently occupied by school supplies. Loki found himself susceptible to their influence. Welcomed it. Bought sweet potatoes, green beans, stuffing, and half a chicken. The kitchen smelled like Thanksgiving when they walked through the door.

 

“Have you decided what you’re going to do with all these empty rooms?” Thor asked, as they wandered through the house, sipping wine and looking out the windows for rabbits and birds.

“It would be silly to buy furniture just for the sake of having them full. I got this place for the yard.”

“Yard feels like an understatement. _Grounds_ is more like it.”

Loki gave a small shrug and pointed out toward the pond.

“Doe.”

Thor hummed and they went downstairs to spy on the deer through binoculars.

“Summer isn’t dead yet,” Thor said, watching a hummingbird pause to sip nectar from the bee balm. “Do you have room for Sonic?”

“Always. You drive. You owe me a ride in your new car.”

“True.”

 

They each got pineapple shakes, drank half on the way home, then poured rum and coconut milk into the spaces they’d made in their cups.

 

“Off tomorrow?” Loki asked.

“Yep.”

“Movie?”

“You pick.”

“ _Beetlejuice_?”

“Oh my god, I haven’t seen that since we were kids. Yes, definitely.”

“Drinking game?”

“Umm,” Thor narrowed his eyes. “Drink for any scenes we’ve forgotten aaaand... for things that shouldn’t be in a PG film.”

“I feel like we’re in for alcohol poisoning.”

  


The air cooled off when the sun went down and the breeze coming in over the back lawn brought a welcome chill to their cheeks, which had gone hot with the rum in their blood and the warmth that came with sitting side by side on a cushy sofa.

“Where would you like to sleep?” Loki asked, when the credits began to roll.

“Where can you most easily carry me?” Thor asked, sagging against Loki’s shoulder.

Loki slid forward off the couch so that Thor fell onto his side.

“Ta-da,” Loki sang, then turned to tuck a pillow under his brother’s head and toss a blanket over his legs.

  


Upstairs, the empty bedrooms amplified the creaking of the hallway floor beneath Loki’s feet. He briefly considered furnishing them with rugs and curtains, but concluded that closing the doors would be an easier way to stop the echoes if he ever found his nerves in need of quiet.

  


The light looked odd when Loki woke. He wondered if the weather was slightly overcast, brightening the sky by turning the whole thing white. When he peered through the curtains everything was blue. When he looked at the clock it read noon and he sat up with a start and hurried to the other side of the house to look down onto the driveway. Thor’s car was still there. Loki crept along the edge of the staircase where the boards didn’t groan so much. He found his brother exactly as he’d left him the night before, but dreaming now, drawing deep, full breaths and puffing them out through parted, sleep-swollen lips.

 

The scent of brewing coffee brought Thor back to life. Loki watched him slowly stand and stretch, knotting his fingers together high above his head, straightening all his joints, going up on his tiptoes and arching backward like a drawn bow. His ribs pressed through the worn fabric of his t-shirt and painted curving shadows on the cotton. Loki wanted to take a picture, but remembered his phone was still upstairs on the nightstand.

 

Thor looked out the window, wrinkled his nose, and checked his watch.

“How is it noon?” Thor boggled.

“I have no idea.”

“How long have you been up?”

“About fifteen minutes,” Loki said, handing his brother a steaming cup of coffee.

  


The following Friday, Loki lured Thor to dinner with coq au vin, then let him slip away without a struggle, knowing Thor had a twenty-four hour shift in his future, not wishing to torment him with fun he’d either have to decline or regret.

  


Loki woke at seven on Saturday morning. His usual time, though the sky was dark with the coming September. His bladder was content, so he dismissed the idea of getting up and doing something useful with himself in favor of rolling onto his side and staring out his bedroom door into the empty room that sat silently across the hall. The light within it went from pink to orange to yellow while Loki watched. Thor’s palette. Cheerful, warm, and safe. Loki wondered if he should furnish that room. Give Thor something better than a sofa to sleep on when he stayed over. Make the option more appealing.

  


He spent the afternoon texting Thor stories about the wildlife from his backyard, with pictures to prove that his fantasies were at least based in fact. The deer drinking their morning coffee were drinking from the pond, which, in the shadow of the woods, looked like it was full of espresso. The doves enjoying their tea were perched on a utility pole shaped like a T. The small alien life form that was laying its eggs in his neighbor’s chest was a giant ichneumon wasp that was laying eggs on insect larvae deep within a tree.

  
  
  
  


_I’m too tired to chew. How do you feel about shakes for dinner?_ Thor texted, when the weather was warm again the following weekend.

 _Strawberry please,_ Loki replied.

  


They sprawled on a blanket on the back lawn, sipping their liquid suppers and watching a kingfisher eat all the bluegills Loki had put in the pond.

 

“Any worthwhile cases at work?” Thor asked.

“Nothing this week. Just another stream of idiots paying me to ruin perfectly lovely faces. You?”

Thor shook his head and tried to shoo the question away with a little flick of his fingers.

“What happened?” Loki whispered. He saw Thor’s nostrils twitch and his lips pull thin. “Thor.”  
“It’ll be on the news,” Thor said, and Loki felt the hair on his arms stand on end.

“That’s why I don’t watch the news.”

Thor gave a weak, approving smile, then sighed.

“You really want to know?”

“I want to hear it from you, but only if you’re up for it.”

“So a guy with a felony conviction and a four-year-old had a gun.”

“Felons can’t have guns.”

“Exactly,” Thor nodded. “So when the four-year-old found the gun and shot himself in the belly, dad didn’t want to call 911, because then he’d be in trouble with the law.”

“Nevermind the four-year-old’s trouble with the bullet.”

“Definitely secondary as far as this father was concerned. He loaded the kid into the car and dropped him off on--I shit you not--the doorstep of a church.”

“Of course he did. I’m sure he was thinking it offered some sort of legal sanctuary for idiots who kill their kids.”

“He was.”

“Cops have him?”  

“They do.”

“Where did they find him?”

“A bar.”

“Unreal.”

“He didn’t even stick around to see if anyone was actually _in_ the church. Spoilers: no one was. Someone driving past it saw the kid on the front steps from the road.”

“Jesus,” Loki breathed. “How long did all that take?”

“Over three hours.”

“Fuck. Did the kid make it?” Loki whispered

“Yes, but barely. Stable last I saw him. If his stupid bastard of a father had just called us as soon as it hap-” Thor shook his head.

“Quit your job,” Loki said softly. “The schedule is hell on your health--dangerous for you and everyone around you, the stress is more in a week than most people face in a lifetime, and racing through intersections in an ambulance is Russian roulette even without the addition of sleep deprivation.”

Thor grimaced and shook his head.

“I’m a stone’s throw from broke after replacing Penny. Quitting my job isn’t going to improve that situation.”

“At least start looking.”

Thor gave a noncommittal shrug, then leaned over to steal a sip of Loki’s shake and made a pleased hum at the twanging drum of a bullfrog.

  


Loki had intended to ask Thor if he was interested in watching a few episodes of _Over the Garden Wall_ , but lost, injured children seemed likely to be a sore subject.

“Have you ever had a face and head massage?” Loki asked.

“Yeah,” Thor nodded. “Mom used to do them for me when I got migraines in high school.”

“I didn’t know you got headaches.”

“They’ve calmed down since, but it used to be almost once a week. A head massage in a dark room while we waited for the diet Coke and Tylenol to kick in.”

“Want one now?”

“Really?”

“Sure, come on.”

 

Thor followed Loki upstairs where Loki had him lie diagonally across the mattress with his head at the lower right corner. He grabbed a few things from the bath, turned down the dimmer, laid a fluffy towel over his brother’s chest, and then dragged the bench from the foot of the bed over to the corner so that he could sit straddling Thor’s head.

“What’s that?” Thor asked. Loki had a tiny glass bottle full of orange fluid in his hand.

“Rosehip oil. Nice for skin,” Loki said, using the dropper to set beads of the liquid on Thor’s forehead, cheeks, nose, chin, and the base of his throat.

“Smells a little like olive oil.”

“Mmhmm,” Loki agreed, spreading it over Thor’s features with long light strokes with the side of his fingers. He lightly gripped and traced the edge of Thor’s jaw. Pressed Thor’s temples in firm circles that drifted up to meet in the center of his forehead. Glided his fingertips over the perfect bumps in the bridge of Thor’s nose and the lopsided curves of his upper lip. Painted his throat with broad, heavy strokes that stretched and kneaded the muscles of the neck. Used the tips of his ring fingers to run tiny, weightless circles around the eye sockets, pausing to gently press the inner corners during each circuit and feeling Thor’s pulse tapping back against his skin. Thor hummed.

“Was that a good _mmm_ or a bad _mmm_?” Loki asked.

“Good. It’s an eyeball massage,” Thor noted.

“Yes, for eye fatigue, allegedly. Though I’m skeptical of most massage claims. Half the time the masseur will still tell you to drink a lot of water afterward because the massage flushed out toxins. Which is fiction. Your liver, kidneys, lungs, and intestines do that. Your skin will get in on the game when it comes to heavy metals--in which case you’ve got more pressing needs than a massage. Massage just feels good.”

“Can’t leave well enough alone, can we?”

“Never. Why do we have such a problem touching each other for pleasure?”

“We’re too guilty for it,” Thor smiled. “Christian nonsense. Need to pretend it’s medical so we can get a prescription and feel practical instead of needy and ashamed.”

“Honestly.”

Loki rubbed Thor’s cheeks while they were firm and round with smiling, then felt them fall flat beneath his fingers.

“Does that mean the massages Mom gave me for headaches were snake oil? I could have sworn they started working after a minute or two. They didn’t get rid of the headaches completely, but it felt like they took them from an eight to a four.”

“Pain and pleasure are cousins. Dopamine has a hand in both. Vaginal stimulation can double someone’s pain threshold. She was distracting you with something delicious until the caffeine and acetaminophen wiped out the agony.”

“Like giving candy to a toddler who’s just tipped over.”

“Pretty much.”

They giggled together and then Loki hummed.

“What?” Thor asked.

“Would you have let her touch you if you hadn’t had a vaguely medical excuse?” Loki asked. Thor grinned and turned pink. “That looks like a yes,” Loki noted.

“I only stopped sneaking into her room to snuggle her in the mornings because I left for college.”

“ _What_?”

“And after that I still did it when I came home for holidays. _Do,_ ” Thor amended. “I did it last Christmas.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

“When the hell were you doing this? How did I not notice?”

“It was early,” Thor sighed. “Six-thirty, seven-ish. You slept until noon on weekends in high school.”

“ _Slept_ until _ten_. Stayed in bed until noon.”

“Fapping,” Thor finished.

“Fapping,” Loki confirmed, and they started giggling again.

“I don’t have a medical excuse right now,” Thor said. Loki hummed and squinted.

“Depends on whether you consider mental well-being medical.”

“It’s part of health,” Thor decided. “Not inherently medical. Just necessary.”

“No better excuse than necessity.”

“If it’s a necessity, then it’s a reason, not an excuse. Pleasure as reason. And pleasure this is. I’m a puddle. You’ll have to squeegee me off the sheets.”

“I still have to do your scalp and the back of your neck.”

“Then you’ll never get me out of these sheets.”

“I’ll have to burn them.”

Thor nodded and Loki raked his fingers through Thor’s hair, pressing in firmly, feeling the muscles catch and drag against the skull. When he did Thor’s neck he felt the weight of his brother’s head rolling from side to side in his hands.

“Jeans off,” Loki said.

“Happy ending,” Thor purred, and Loki snorted, called him a pig, and pretended to smother him with a pillow.

“Do you want bottoms?”

“No thank you.”

“Get up there,” Loki said, shooing his brother across the mattress with flicks from the backs of his fingers until Thor was properly in bed with the blankets over him. “Windows open?” Loki asked, as it was getting cool now overnight.

“Yes please.”

  


Loki thought himself alone when he woke. His pulse tripped and gave a frantic stumble when he opened his eyes and saw only white bedding around him. But when he lifted his head he found his brother still asleep, hidden behind a jumble of sheets and down comforter. He saw Thor’s eyes darting about beneath the shiny domes of his lids and hoped they were following the motions of deer and baby rabbits rather than replaying the events of the previous workday.

  


Loki was still propped up on his elbow, staring, when Thor woke.

“Creeper,” Thor said, voice dry and thick with sleep.

“Gudetama.”

Thor giggled, stretched, and kicked off the blankets.

“Nice dick,” Loki said, and Thor’s head shot up.

“Oh my god,” he gasped, yanking his boxers up where his morning erection had popped through the flap, then curling away, still laughing, finally clearing his throat.

“Thank you.”

Their giggling made the whole bed vibrate.

“Thank _you_ ,” Loki said, when he could again manage words, to make it worse, and therefore funnier, so that they laughed until they were wheezing and crying.

  


When they calmed, Loki wiped the sleep from Thor’s eyes and prodded a pillow-crease that was denting his brother’s left cheek.

“How do you feel about poached eggs?” Loki asked.

“Gudetama can’t eat eggs, that’s cannibalism.”

“Cannibalism is popular now.”

“ _Hannibal_ was cancelled.”

“Well it’s still mainstream.”

“Works for me. Poached on toast.”

“Can you be trusted to make toast?” Loki asked.

“I can be trusted to _make_ it. I can’t be trusted to _not_ drown it in butter.”

“Perfect,” Loki said, and curled forward, sitting up. “Thor, there’s something pink on your boxers, and I don’t mean your dick this time. Are you bleeding?”

Loki leaned over and pinched the spot on the pale blue cotton between his fingers, finding it slightly stiff and tacky.

“Jam. I spilled some during breakfast the other day, but all my boxers were in the hamper. Still are. Have to do laundry when I get home. I’m completely out of clean clothes.”

“Quit your job.”

“I think that’s your version of ‘As you wish,’” Thor smiled.

Loki squeezed his knee.

  
  
  
  


In October Thor shook his head no when Loki asked how his day had been. Thor’s expression was a combination of warning and pleading that told Loki not to press it.

“Quit your job,” was all Loki said. Thor gave him a grateful smile.

 

While Thor was in the bathroom, Loki scrolled through the local news until he found the most likely candidate. A woman in a sedan, texting while driving, had drifted into the opposite lane at a curve and crashed head-on into an oncoming sanitation truck. No mention of an attempt to revive her, and Loki could imagine she was more or less liquified. Attempts to revive the eight year old twins riding in the back seat were unsuccessful.

 

After dinner, Loki convinced his brother to take advantage of the enormous bathtub upstairs. Thor stayed in it for almost two hours, stewing himself so that his muscles stopped clenching. Then Loki turned the heat up in the house, covered his brother in blankets, and kneaded his spine and shoulders until they were limp and he could hear Thor snoring softly against the sheets.

 

They slept until one and had leftover pumpkin pie for brunch, then spent the afternoon reading on the couch with their legs tangled up on the middle cushion and their backs propped up against the armrests with pillows.

  
  
  
  


A week later, Thor got back to his apartment after a grueling shift to find a cheerful green envelope taped to his door. His brother’s curling script spelled out his name and the words “Envelope 1 of 2. Open first and read now.” Thor did so. Loki’s note read “Brace yourself. I have taken liberties. Your new address is pet-friendly, spacious, and has much more reasonable rent.”

 

Thor opened the door to find another green envelope on the floor of an otherwise empty apartment. Inside was a set of keys and a small card with his brother’s address on it.

  
  


The balance in Thor’s bank account crept up by larger increments than he was expecting, though, in hindsight, he should have expected it and felt silly for his oversights. It wasn’t just the rent that had disappeared. It was also the electric bill. Netflix. Internet service. Water. Groceries and toiletries. Renters insurance. Coin laundry. Thor’s offer to reimburse was rejected.

“Savings, Thor. Rainy days, emergencies, retirement, entertainment. A cushion, should you find yourself between jobs for a while,” Loki finished, voice slightly high, eyebrows raised.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


“Are you all right?” Loki asked, when his brother finally called him back on a clear, sunny day in mid November.

“Fine, why?”

“Claire told me an ambulance got t-boned going through an intersection during rush hour this morning.”

“Wasn’t us. Haven’t heard about it yet. Everyone okay?”  
“Only unspecified injuries in the coverage I’ve seen. No deaths mentioned.”

“Quiet day on our end, knock on wood.”

“Quit your job,” Loki said, the phrase as solid as any sign-off now. His standard conversation closer when he was talking to his brother.

“As you wish,” Thor said.

Loki stood still after the call ended. Lately Thor’s farewell had consistently been ‘See you soon.’  
  
  
  
Thor was only off for two weeks before he found new work. For fourteen days, Loki was spoiled with hot breakfasts, warm laughter, and Thor’s quiet, helpful fussing around the house, fixing little problems in old windows and older woodwork before they snowballed into big ones. By the end of week two, Loki wanted to beg Thor to be a full-time stay-at-home brother.

 

  
Thor’s new position as a home health aide felt like being human again, though the work was more relentless. Relatively normal hours. Slower, safer tasks. He was strong enough to lift adults on his own, which came in handy for transferring people in and out of bathtubs, which was a treat after transferring them in and out of ambulances. Wound care didn’t phase him. Running errands was a relaxing drive after years spent careening down highways with sirens blaring. The bulk of the job was listening. The patients who were able to do so liked to hover and chat while Thor did housework. Getting to know them made it easier to gauge their health from day to day.

 

The pay was as abysmal as it had been as an EMT. When Thor was hired, Loki had smiled and clapped his brother on the back while his mind had silently screamed. Thor provided necessities for six percent of what Loki made providing what were most often luxuries.

  
  
  
  


The first funeral for a patient Thor had cared for didn’t come until April. Loki went with him and watched family faces brighten on hearing his brother’s name, which had come up often in their recent conversations with Carol. Thor had downloaded Instagram and Snapchat for her. He’d shown her how to use them  and helped her find people she knew. Her relatives had seen more of her in the past few months than in the previous years combined. Grandkids showed Thor screenshots they’d saved of their grandmother with Snapchat filters warping her features--and pictures of her with Thor, which they were happy to send his way.

 

Loki swung into Sonic for medicinal shakes on the way home. Strawberry and peanut butter, which they swapped every few sips.

 

At red lights Loki stole peeks at his brother from the corner of his eye. Thor was staring out the window, face smooth, sometimes calling out the signs of spring. Tulips. Red-winged blackbirds. Hyacinths. Lilacs. Robins. Magnolias.

“Is this going to be liveable?” Loki asked.

“Is this all we’re eating today?”

“I mean the job. Losing patients.”

“It’s,” Thor began, and spread his fingers, “from natural causes, as varied and awful as they are.”

“It’s an abnormally high exposure to that though,” Loki said softly. “And that wasn’t a yes.”

“I like knowing people are getting what they need.”

“But what do you need?”

Thor smiled and shrugged. Loki gnawed the inside of his left cheek.

  
  


The next morning Loki opened his eyes to the strange mirror the house had lately become. Across the hall, his brother was curled in bed, facing the door, slowly waking, looking back at him. Most often in a minute they’d start calling out breakfast cravings until something struck a chord in both of them.

 

Thor reached his arm out and wiggled his fingers.

“Gudetama,” Loki said.

Thor fluttered his fingers again and made a high, pathetic grunt. Loki did a sleep-stiff stagger across the hall and went to sit on the edge of Thor’s bed. Thor grabbed him, closed the blankets around him with a scooping motion, rolled, and flipped Loki face down on the mattress in a cotton cocoon.

“Ah, the old burrito trap.”

“You literally walked right into it,” Thor teased, scooting over slightly so that he was only half on top of his brother.

“In my defense, I’m, like, twenty years out of practice.”

“Yes, but you invented it.”

“I know,” Loki laughed. “I should have seen it coming. _You_ should have seen it coming after the first time. You barged into my room--and into the burrito--at noon every weekend. On the dot.”

“Noon was the cut-off. I got so bored without you.”

“I was a sweaty, fappy mess.”

Loki felt Thor shrug against him. He squirmed slightly and Thor let him up. They restored the bedding to some semblance of order and snuggled back into the sheets and pillows.

“The house felt dead and empty whenever you and Mom were out or asleep,” Thor murmured. “Like a different place.”

“I know the feeling,” Loki nodded. Thor caught his eye.

“You really don’t mind me living here,” Thor said. Loki reached to move the hair that was slowly spilling forward, obscuring Thor’s face.

“I prefer it,” Loki admitted, tucking the strands behind Thor’s ear and plucking an eyelash from his cheek. “Do _you_ mind?”

“Not so much mind as feel like a mooch.”

“You have a full-time job. You’ve done more work on this house in three months than I’ve done in three years. You’re not lying around in a bathrobe eating bonbons and watching soaps all day. Not that I’d care if you did. Mooch at will.”

“You work on the house all the time.”

“Now,” Loki nodded. “Not before. It didn’t feel like I lived here yet.”

“The gardens are amazing though. You can’t tell me you haven’t been sweating blood on those.”

“Yes, but outside is something else.”

Thor hummed.

 

“It’s supposed to be cold and wet all day,” Loki noted, turning his head to see the rain that had just begun to tap against the window.

“Mmm. Gloom is the best napping-weather.”

Loki stretched out on his back and raised his right arm until his brother wedged himself under it and slipped his own arm around Loki’s waist. He kissed the top of Thor’s forehead and got a fond squeeze in answer, then felt Thor’s thumb gently brushing his side, slowing as they drifted off to sleep.    
  


  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> please don't comment or repost


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